Originally Posted by
Phil_gretz
It's not what you're missing, but what you are adding. The police are trained to gather facts. There is no evidence given in this scenario that the car "was used" in any way. Any supposition you may have about what the driver would have done, or may have intended to do, is simply that...supposition. Trained police would not likely be interested in this, unless the driver were a person of interest in prior crimes.
Jurisdictions sometimes have general "nuisance" or "disturbing the peace" or "creating unsafe conditions" statutes that might be stretched to cover this type of behavior if you happen to do it in front of a cop, but there's no way they're going to put any effort into tracking the guy down after the fact. I think there's an implied threat with any excessive honking, but good luck proving that was the driver's intent beyond a reasonable doubt. Where I think the line is where brandishing deadly weapon type charges (different names in different states) should apply is ANY deliberate swerving to do a close pass of or cut off a cyclist. Comparable use of any other potentially deadly implement would rise to felony level in most places. Frankly, I don't see any real difference in intent and potential consequence between an intentional close pass and deliberately firing a bullet to just miss someone.